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How often do you change your mobile phone plan? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I feel like every two years I need to call my carrier and complain if I want a decent deal. They will do things like upgrade my plan on their website to have 10 extra gigabytes of data but won't upgrade me to it until I contact them. There's also all the new member exclusive deals that I feel make it impractical to just sit on one plan for an extended period of time.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

So my base plan here in the US is probably 7-10yrs old? And they keep pushing me to switch over to one of the new "unlimited" plans, since I'm on an old 5GB/mo plan. So why don't I switch?

Mainly because I don't normally use more than 5GB/mo. Crazy in 2024, I know, but I'm usually at home on WiFi. And if I'm traveling, I'll try to stick to WiFi as much as possible, esp if I'm going to watch YouTube or something.

But then a couple years ago, I stumbled upon a special offer from my carrier that gives me 1000GB/mo for $10/mo. Oh, it also rolls over. So I basically always have 2000GB/mo. And I can use it for hotspot data for no additional cost (which I do). And it doesn't get deprioritized (unlike the "unlimited" data in the their newer plans, once I go over a certain point). As long as I don't change my base plan, I get to keep this add-on.

And even with that add-on, my bill is still $5-10 cheaper than the carrier's worst "unlimited" plan. I do lose out on two things: Ultrawideband/mmwave and no international coverage included. I don't care for the first thing and I don't travel abroad often enough that that's an issue. I still get 5G, just not the special 5G or whatever UWB/mmwave is.

Short of me losing 5G access or making the "unlimited" plans significantly cheaper, there's really nothing they can do to make me switch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And I can use it for hotspot data for no additional cost

From a European perspective (no idea about other places) this sounds so ridiculous. You pay for internet. Why should they be allowed to dictate if you can hotspot it or not

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah for sure. I mean, my hotspot anyway has always been free. But I know people who have to pay separately. And I don't understand why.

I remember the first time I went to Europe several years ago. I went to Barcelona. I picked up a local sim card at an Orange store. I must've gotten like 10GB for like 28 days or something? And it was like half to 2/3 the price of what I was paying at home for 5GB.

Same in the Philippines. That said, in either location, I didn't try hotspotting.